THE NERVOUS WRECKS

Evening Post, Volume CCXV, Issue 13, 17 January 1938, Page 18

THE NERVOUS WRECKS

LLOYD GEORGE REBUKED Lord Allen.of Hurtwood, speaking at Kensington recently, reports "The Times,"- said: "Mr. Lloyd George has referred to Mr. Eden as a good chauffeur, the victim of a lot- of nervous wrecks clutching at his elbow. I wonder if Mr. Lloyd George remembers when he in, his turn, .was the chauffeur at Versailles, and allowed himself to be clutched^ at by several hundred nervous wrecks in Parliament, who sent him a telegram bidding him drive the car over the precipice. Mr. Lloyd George certainly did not on that occasion live up to his better self, as he now begs Mr. Eden to do." ■ "The international situation had now become so complex, he said, and required that they should take inio account such an immense number oi interlocked facts and considerations that it would be helpful if a Foreign Affairs Committee were set up in Parliament, upon which both Government and Opposition were represented. That experiment had been tried successfully in other countries. It must, of course, leave the right to make all final decisions exclusively in the hands of the Government of the day, but it would enable that Government to take the Opposition more into its confidence than was possible in the rough and tumble of Parliamentary debate. It would not mean enshrouding foreign affairs with a cloak of secrecy, but it would enable constructive criticism to be founded upon a more thorough grasp of all that was involved. One of the major difficulties about the present international situation was the fact that we were always getting caught up in a succession of crises, which we attempted to deal with one by one in isolation. It was the dictatorships which made the running all the time. Immense advantage would accrue if some opportunity could be found, either at the League table or in the British Parliament, for making a declaration which outlined the policy Britain would like to see followed, with a view to a general settlement on all the international questions that now confronted us.